Authored by Aaron Gifford via The Epoch Times,
Results from a recent global assessment indicate that reading scores for American high school students have dropped over the past three years, while math and science performance still falls behind their peers in several other developed countries.
The Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), which tests 15-year-olds in math, science, and reading proficiency as metrics for college and career readiness, conducted its last tests in 2025.
The initial findings, released on Sept. 8, indicate that children from Singapore, Japan, South Korea, Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom continue to outperform American public-school children in those three subjects.
PISA has not yet shared comprehensive comparative rankings of the 91 nations that participated in the latest assessments.
China did not participate as a nation; the four Chinese provinces that did also outperformed American 15-year-olds.
About 760,000 children across the world participated, according to the PISA website.
All told, U.S. students still performed above the average of all participating nations in reading and science, and slightly below average for math.
Compared to the 2022 PISA, average U.S. results in science remained the same.
For math and reading, however, the average scores remained below pre-COVID levels and "among the lowest ever observed in PISA in the United States" dating back 26 years.
Education Secretary Linda McMahon said the nation's outdated public education needs a major overhaul that begins with universal school choice for all American families.
"The United States of America is a nation built to lead the world, yet our one-size-fits-all federal education bureaucracy has shortchanged our children and stifled our future," she said in an email to The Epoch Times.
"Today's international education scores confirm a decade of stagnation and a devastating gap: we successfully propel our highest achievers, but the lowest-performing students are falling further behind - and have suffered a loss of learning in reading equivalent to nearly a year and a half of instruction compared to 2015.
"This moment is a stress test for our nation's future. To pass it, we must enact a hard reset that stops protecting a failed status quo and instead builds a system that empowers state leaders and embraces innovative learning options through school choice."
The PISA proficiency levels range from one to six, with level two considered minimum proficiency.
Seventy-four percent of the U.S. students were at level two or above in reading, but only 13 percent were at level five or six.
The results for science were similar.
For math, 65 percent of U.S. students were at level two or above, but only 8 percent were at levels five or six, compared to 54 percent of the four Chinese provinces and Singapore's 37 percent.
The 2025 program introduced a digital computational problem-solving assessment.
U.S. children scored above the overall average in that category, still falling behind several Asian and English-speaking nations, but outperforming Germany, France, Mexico, and Brazil, according to the PISA report.
Globally, PISA determined that one in five students is considered low-performing in science, math, and reading, up from 16 percent in 2022.
Average reading scores fell by 28 points since 2015, while math fell by 22 points, according to the report.
"PISA 2025 shows that reversing declines in student performance is urgent," said Mathias Cormann, secretary-general of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which oversees the PISA program.
"The most successful education systems focus on fewer areas in greater depth, invest in teachers, engage parents, and provide targeted support for the students and schools that need it the most," Cormann said in the report.
"Technology and AI can strengthen learning and help prepare young people for the future, but only when used purposefully and not as a substitute for attention, effort, and understanding."
PISA also surveyed participants about their use of artificial intelligence to draft text in writing assignments and determined that those who did not use it outperformed those who said they did.
Tyler Durden Wed, 09/09/2026 - 15:50The full-scale war in Ukraine lately blew past four years and six months since February 24, 2022, and has also long been a proxy conflict, pitting the US and NATO against Russia. Beyond this, there's been what can be described as a raging 'dirty war' stretching back over 12 years since at least February 2014.
Lest anyone think this is an exaggeration, or that it's not actually a deep proxy and covert shadow war as well, it is worth revisiting our prior widely viewed report from 2024: CIA Built "12 Secret Spy Bases" In Ukraine & Waged Shadow War For Last Decade, Bombshell NYT Report Confirms.
Embroiled in a seemingly unwinnable Iran war and increasing quagmire, President Trump badly needs a 'win' in terms of winding down major foreign conflicts, and so this month there's been a return to intensified diplomacy on the Ukraine war, for which envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner were dispatched to both Moscow and then Kiev.
It seems that prior to this week, as White House and global attention was purely consumed with the Iran war, and Hormuz-related global energy crisis, the US administration left deep state bureaucrats in charge of running the day-to-day on American involvement in Ukraine. It's no wonder why long-range drone operations deep into Russian territory have grown more and more brazen, clearly having Western intelligence targeting assistance.
Now, enter US Under Secretary of War for Policy Elbridge Colby, who has informed Washington's European allies to prepare for a "protracted" war in Ukraine and to keep the pipeline of US-made weapons to Ukrainian forces going. This all certainly is a contradiction on its surface, but is part of the ongoing US policy folly of 'escalate to de-escalate'.
AFP/Getty Images"As President Trump has stated, our goal is a lasting peace. We are supporting every effort in that direction. From the standpoint of the Department of War, however, we cannot predict when this tragic war will end," Colby said Tuesday in virtual address to the Ukraine Defense Contact Group.
The Defense Contact Group was formed under a Biden - and not a Trump - initiative, ironically enough. It has coordinated and overseen the flow of weapons among allies to Ukraine since its formation in 2022.
"As you all well know, Russia is reconstituting its forces and defense-industrial capacity. We must be prepared for a protracted conflict and for Ukraine’s requirements to persist in the months and years ahead. And we must also be prepared for other plausible contingencies as well," he added.
...So now Washington is settling in for yet more grinding and bloody "years ahead" in supporting Ukrainians on the battlefield.
Colby further said the situation "makes it all the more important for Europe to sustain support for Ukraine while also accelerating its own rearmament and reindustrialization."
"First, Europe must continue — and where necessary increase — support for Ukraine’s immediate battlefield requirements through PURL. The continued flow of munitions and critical capabilities is effective; it remains essential to enabling Ukrainian forces to hold the front line and deny further Russian advances," Colby laid out.
“Second, Europe must plan now for sustained procurement that supports both Ukraine's long-term force reconstitution and Europe’s own defense requirements,” he added.
Colby had before joining the Trump administration been an open skeptic of the US pouring so many billions into Ukraine, arguing that the Taiwan-China issue should be a much bigger and long-term priority.
For example, back in 2023 he was giving foreign policy talks called "The Case for Prioritizing Taiwan Over Ukraine" in which he argued that "if America continues to divide and distribute valuable resources to Ukraine and the Middle East, all it will do is detract from adequately addressing the largest threat to America and the world." The 'threat' in his estimation is China potential future conquest and hold over Taiwan.
Tyler Durden Wed, 09/09/2026 - 15:35Submitted by QTR's Fringe Finance
It’s awful to say but at this point I’m kind of praying that AI industry valuations crash and the industry faces setbacks that give us months to reflect on its companies.
Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon is leaving the AI industry because he believes the race to build self-improving systems is moving faster than the industry’s ability to control them, it was reported yesterday.
Coxon, who previously worked at OpenAI, said Anthropic’s safety efforts were sincere but that competition makes meaningful restraint difficult without broader coordination.
In an age where everything from warfare to Wall Street, power grids to payment systems, air traffic control to hospital networks, and the software that keeps our food, fuel and communications moving is digital, losing control of the systems that operate that infrastructure is not some abstract science-fiction problem.
It is a potentially civilization-scale problem. And the more of our lives we hand over to AI, the less comforting it becomes to hear that the people building it are still figuring out how to make sure it does what it’s told.
“We’re on track for a lot of the most aggressive of these scenarios where by the end of next year things could be out of control already,” Coxon said in a post yesterday.
His departure comes amid growing concern about AI systems behaving deceptively, conducting cyberattacks and developing capabilities that may become increasingly difficult to supervise.
Coxon believes the industry is approaching a point at which systems could improve themselves faster than humans can reliably understand or constrain them.
Think about that for a second. While you’re wondering whether the Patriots covered -2.5 on a Sunday, scratching your ass and drinking beer for three hours, a cluster of 823 trillion GPUs with the brain power of every human who has ever lived times a zillion is quietly figuring out how to run the entire world without you.
And by the time you realize what’s happening, the only thing you’ll still be in control of is whether you want another beer.
There is, of course, something to be said for Coxon’s timing. It is easiest to be bombastic when you’re walking out the door. You no longer have to worry about the next performance review, the next meeting with management or whether your comments are going to make life uncomfortable at the office. And if you want to stir shit up on your way out, a dramatic warning about the future of humanity is a pretty effective way to do it.
But that doesn’t mean his warning is wrong.
I am increasingly convinced that there will come a point at which, if we have not gotten out in front of AI, curbed its capabilities or otherwise established meaningful constraints, we may no longer be able to do so.
The question is not whether that point arrives next year, five years from now or later. The question is whether we will recognize it before we cross it.
And if you’ve been paying attention, it is no longer insane to contemplate AI systems eventually taking control of enormous portions of our digital infrastructure. We have already seen models demonstrate unexpected capabilities, exploit vulnerabilities and behave in ways their developers did not intend.
And just yesterday, OpenAI announced that an internal AI system had produced a solution to the Navier–Stokes Millennium Prize Problem, a mathematical question that has resisted researchers for decades.
The company says the proof was generated through a coordinated effort involving roughly 10,000 AI agents. That is another reminder that capabilities once considered safely beyond these systems are arriving much faster than many people expected. Now imagine those 10,000 AI agents working on whatever f**king problem they want, anytime they want, without regard for human beings.
The gap between what these systems can do and what we can confidently guarantee they will not do is becoming a serious problem, if you ask me. And as more of the economy, communications, finance, energy and national infrastructure become dependent on software, the consequences of getting that gap wrong become much larger.
This is no longer just a question of whether a chatbot gives you a bad answer. It is a question of what happens when increasingly autonomous systems are given access to the machinery that runs the modern world.
And we are already getting glimpses of why that matter. Here's 10 examples specifically of how AI has already gone wrong.
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None of these examples proves that AI is about to take over the world. Some were controlled evaluations, some were security vulnerabilities, and some involved humans deliberately using AI for malicious purposes. But taken together, they show why the control problem deserves to be taken seriously. We are already seeing systems cross intended boundaries, exploit weaknesses and carry out actions their operators did not anticipate. The question is what happens when those capabilities become substantially more powerful and are connected to more consequential infrastructure.
None of this proves that AI is about to take over the world. But it does show that the concern is not being pulled out of thin air. We are already seeing systems exploit weaknesses, cross intended boundaries and behave in ways their developers did not anticipate. The question is what happens when those same capabilities become substantially more powerful and are connected to more consequential infrastructure.
So whether Coxon is being bombastic is ultimately beside the point. His warning is legitimate, and it deserves to be treated as a warning rather than dismissed as another disgruntled employee making noise on the way out. You can roll your eyes at the delivery and still recognize that the underlying concern is real.
AI is now a race. A race between companies, a race between countries, a race between zealous company founders. And in a race there is adrenaline, competitiveness and all the reason in the world to throw care to the wind to be first. To win. Except this time ‘winning’ your beef with some other dorky AI founder may accidentally mean the end of civilization. And I’m really not trying to be hyperbolic.
If we ignore the speed we are moving…and wait until the systems are powerful enough that we can no longer reliably constrain them, the debate over whether we should have acted sooner will be completely meaningless.
We may only get one chance to establish meaningful control before that happens. We should probably use it.
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Tyler Durden Wed, 09/09/2026 - 15:20Comcast shares tumbled after CFO Jason Armstrong warned at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia + Technology Conference that broadband subscriber losses would not improve this quarter from a year earlier.
Bloomberg first reported Armstrong's comments, which sent shares down as much as 8.1% around 11:16 a.m. ET, their largest decline in months.
Armstrong told the audience at the conference in San Francisco, California, today that he still expects broadband subscriber losses to improve for the full year, although quarterly results will vary. He blamed part of the pressure on what he called "irrational fiber pricing."
Analysts tracked by Bloomberg expected Comcast to lose 103,000 domestic broadband subscribers in the third quarter, slightly fewer than the 104,000 lost a year earlier.
KeyBanc analyst Brandon Nispel expects consensus subscriber forecasts to deteriorate following the comments. He said, "We would expect CMCSA consensus net adds to move lower, where an accelerating loss trajectory could require further ARPU pressure for Subs to stabilize, a cycle we don't see ending."
Charter Communications fell 5.7% as the warning weighed on peers.
Tyler Durden Wed, 09/09/2026 - 15:05